Feedback: Oh, we remember your tax reform, Speaker Bolger

Jan. 19, 2014

In his commentary printed in the Jan. 12 Free Press, Michigan House Speaker Jase Bolger said, “In 2011, we adopted tax reform that takes less money from Michigan taxpayers.”

I don’t know about everyone else in the state of Michigan, but my taxes went up. I am a lifelong resident of Michigan, a retiree for the past four years. I haven’t forgotten 2011, and no amount of Republican misinformation will make me forget.

Mark A. Weiss

Southfield

Pope Francis' words continue to inspire

Recently, the Free Press printed this quote from Pope Francis about caring for the poor: “Truly, to understand reality we must move away from the central position of calmness and peacefulness and direct ourselves to the peripheral areas.” Although his statement was directed at the clergy who misplaced their vows and values, I felt he was talking to me.

Then I saw in the Free Press a photo of two homeless people sharing a bench in our nation’s capital, wrapped up like cocoons in the record cold.

Also pictured was a woman dressed in stylish warmth, clinging to the farther edge of the sidewalk, walking briskly by, avoiding the two homeless people clinging to the edge of subsistence, the peripheral area of life.

Caregiving taught me that the mentally ill absolutely struggle on the periphery of poverty. And there is nothing calming or peaceful in caring for those who are mentally ill, while trying to provide a little calm and peacefulness in their lives, something their brains do not allow them to experience easily.

Thank you, Pope Francis for your realistic message. It helps me to know you understand the need to care for those in need.

Rosalind McHale

Grosse Pointe Woods

Give more, not less, to our public schools

Local public schools have suffered from increased class sizes, program eliminations, employee layoffs and slashed salaries and benefits to employees. We must convince state legislators that local schools deserve priority funding. Now is the time to restore funding!

John Darling

Holland

Privatization of our schools is a failure

Privatization of schools doesn’t work. There is no credible data that supports the privatization of schools will improve performance. The rules being applied to public schools right now are nothing but a reward/punishment system that does nothing to improve performance.

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Gary Collins

Birmingham

Allow some illegal immigrants to stay

According to a Free Press report on Jan. 9, Marco Gonzalez was deported from Detroit after living in the U.S. for more than 20 years.

During that time, he worked hard, purchased a home and was raising his five U.S.-born children in southwest Detroit. He contributed to our community and had not been a burden to this country.

In fact, he even purchased his own ticket back to Guatemala. He came here seeking asylum and the American Dream, and is now living a nightmare.

Destroying families is not the American way. If people come here to work, raise families and contribute to and maintain neighborhoods, why send them away? Sending them back is counter to where we want to be as a city and as a nation.

Jane C. Garcia

Chairwoman, La Sed

A vote to divvy up state's electoral votes

Apportionment of electoral votes by congressional district is not new, and it is more representative of a state’s interests than a popular vote, where, often, a 51% majority rules a 49% minority.

The Founding Fathers had good reason to devise a different procedure to elect each branch of the federal government. Only the House had the popular vote for two-year terms, while senators were appointed by state legislatures for six years, and the president by electoral vote for four years.

The founders knew that popular vote, or democracy, can easily revert to “mob rule,” hence the short two-year term for House members, to promptly correct errors.

Regrettably, the 17th Amendment in 1913 made the Senate also a popular-vote election.

Let’s avoid the entire federal government reverting to mob rule and support congressional district apportionment of electoral votes in Michigan.

The founders designed a republic of representative government, let’s try to keep it that way.

Victor St. Amand

Midland

Take our money? Then give us your power

The president has called out income inequality as a serious problem that must be fixed.

The solution is to take from those who, through their own efforts, have achieved some degree of success, and give it to others who have not.

But perhaps this whole thing is just a distraction to keep us from addressing a much more serious problem: power inequality.

However, don’t expect those in power to do anything about this power inequality. But it should be corrected in much the same way as proposed for income inequality. That is, take from those who have and give to those who have not.

Unlike a solution for income inequality, there is already a plan in place for fixing power inequality: The Constitution of the United States.